The NFL flex schedule needs to stay true to its practices and priorities. The NFL claims flexible scheduling is to ensure quality matchups on Sunday night and to give teams a chance to play their way into primetime. Week 13’s Sunday Night Football game will be between the New York Giants and Washington Redskins — a low quality matchup with two teams who have definitely not played their way into primetime.

With very few quality matchups this Sunday it seemed like a no-brainer to flex the Denver Broncos vs. Kansas City Chiefs, but the NFL thought the fight for third place in the NFC East was too good to pass up. The Denver-Kansas City game is more than worthy for a primetime rematch, and moving it to the 4:25 PM (ET) slot does nothing for the problem that fans will have to sit through a dud afterward.

The fact that the same matchup in Denver was flexed in Week 11 and that this would the Broncos’ third-straight Sunday night appearance doesn’t matter. It is by far the biggest matchup that can be flexed in Week 13 with huge playoff implications, while the Giants and Redskins are both better off losing at this point to climb the draft board. The winner of the Chiefs-Broncos contest will own the driver’s seat in both the AFC West race and the race for the one seed in the conference.

The only people who would prefer to flex a game with slightly more importance than a preseason matchup over a huge rivalry game with major playoff implications probably have to go in to work Sunday night. Let’s hope the Washington-New York game at least has a lot of fantasy implications for fans out there who prefer football that matters.

Aaron Charles is a Kansas City Chiefs writer for rantsports.com. Follow him on twitter@aaroncharleskc or add him to your network on Google